Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Had a somewhat crazy morning. This long exposure at an odd angle captures the essence of the commute pretty well.

We've got a lot of stuff going on at KC-Bike World Headquarters this week -- Not the least of which is the landlord sending out the exterminator in an attempt to thwart the Brown Recluse Spider infestation that we're dealing with. For those not in the know, Brown Recluses are pretty much the only spider around this region that you need to really worry about. Sure, spiders are creepy crawly but most of them are actually pretty good guys. Brown recluse bites are poisonous, and occasionally result in a festering wound that won't heal, sometimes leading to gangrene, requiring amputation or deep tissue surgery. Sounds like a blast, right?

Some of you may have seen one or two recluses. Well, we've been trapping these little suckers BY THE DOZEN. From babies that could stand on the head of a straight pin to grand-poppas that can span an inch-and-a-half, I've got insect glue traps LOADED with them. Other tenants have the same problem, so I'm glad the landlord is doing something about it.

Well, that means I had to do some last minute cleaning-up stuff this morning to prepare for the Bug Man. I got out late, was rushed on the road, and didn't get breakfast before I rolled out. Bad combo.

Random Tunage:DJ Encore - I See Right Through To You (Tandu Dub)Flobots - Handlebars

9 comments:

Never had to deal with any Brown Recluse's that I know of. But I hear they are right nasty. And like you say, most spiders are indeed good guys. But there are always a few upon whioch the whole crew's rep hangs.

I actually have a live one that I trapped in our bath tub. He hasn't eaten in a month and he's still alive. I just keep it dark and humid in his little container. I should probably find a silverfish or something. It's kind of odd having a poisonous pet spider, but I do. I haven't bothered naming him yet -- and it is a male, you can tell from the palps.

Yeah, Brown Recluse = Bad. Good luck in getting rid of them. Here at my house I've seen my fair share of Black Widows. None in the house but creepy none-the-less. I probably see more snakes than widows though.

Our neighbors are moving and she came over Sunday to tell me she had a turtle in her front flower bed and asked if I could help her with it. What? Why would she need my help? When I saw it, I understood. This thing was big and was buried under a bush. We got him out with a rake and discovered this guy was a BIG (probably close to ten pounds) snapping turtle. I had saw one several months ago crossing the road a few blocks from our house but had forgotten about it. This might have been him. This guy was strong, fast, and pissed! We trapped him with a plastic milk carton, flipped it over, and took him to the pond down the street. I was seriously afraid of losing a finger.

Snappers are NEVER pleasant. With a brown recluse, a bite has a CHANCE to maybe rot off your finger or leave a huge, nasty scar. In reality, most brown recluse bites just get irritated and aren't often discernible as a poisonous bite. Only some of them do the necrosis thing.

With a snapper, though, one good solid chomp WILL take flesh with it, instantly. And they have a freakishly long strike. *Shudder*

I had never realized how fast snappers are. I had him pinned down by holding him down on the ground with my hand on his shell (near the back) and the speed with which he was snapping was amazing. You almost couldn't follow it it was so fast. And strong too. To get him flipped over into the milk carton we had to wedge a shovel between him and the ground because he was using his claws to hold himself down. Once he was in the plastic carton he bit the down on the edge and didn't let go until we dumped him out. Once we did dump him out he just stared us down for about a minute and then SPRINTED for the water. You wouldn't think a turtle could move that fast. Man, I should turn this into a blog post. HAHA!

I remember seeing a huge snapper- bigger than a manhole cover. It just lumbered along until my brothers and I tried to give it some food. Then BAMM! It hit what we put in front of it so fast we were all stunned. We didn't mess with it after that.

Privacy Policy

This site is driven by software that uses third-party cookies from Google (Blogger, AdSense, Feedburner and their associates.) Cookies are small pieces of non-executable data stored by your web browser, often for the purpose of storing preferences or data from previous visits to a site. No individual user is directly tracked by this or any other means, but I do use the aggregate data for statistics purposes.

By leaving a link or e-mail address in my comments (including your blogger profile or website URL), you acknowledge that the published comment and associated links will be available to the public and that they will likely be clicked on.

Sponsors

RSS Feed

Contact me!

If you'd like to contact me outside the comments, leave a message and I'll respond. Oh yeah, if you're going to send me a URL, ask me if you can send me one first, then send it when I reply. If not, my spam troll will eat your fingers for breakfast.